“ Ms. Castro, you’re
the first Latina
teacher I’ve
ever had!” The
students around
me nodded
their heads in
agreement.
University of California, Berkeley and
became the first in my family to earn
a college degree. While I was proud
of my accomplishment, I was struck
by the realization that I could only
name three other students from my
eighth-grade class who “made it out”
of our neighborhood and graduated
from college. Two of us were College
Track students.
At the time, I was teaching fifth
graders at one of Oakland’s
public elementary schools serving
predominantly low-income students
of color. I was also in the minority as
an educator of color at my school,
and the comment impacted me;
I, too, had never had a teacher
who shared my racial identity. The
pressure of my role as her teacher,
and for all of my students, rested on
my shoulders every day, because
I was staring back at my 10-yearold self.
This was not the first, nor would
it be the last time I was puzzled,
even angered, by the state of the
education system and the lack of
opportunity for all students from
communities like mine. This blatant
inequity was visible in my middle
school and high school experience,
and became even more apparent
during my time in college. I observed
very few students like me: firstgeneration, students of color. I
couldn’t help but to ask, “Why aren’t
more students like me, from my
community of East Palo Alto here
with me at UC Berkeley? Why doesn’t
every student have the opportunities
College Track offered?”
Like many of my students, my family
immigrated to this country from
Mexico in search of opportunity.
In the community where I grew up,
there were no examples of what it
meant to earn a college degree—the
opportunities it brought, the chance
at the American dream, and most
importantly, how I’d get there.
In 2013, with the help of a full
scholarship, I graduated from the
The answers have continued to
evolve as I have progressed through
my career, but what is clear is
something I learned from College
Track and the mentors I call family:
the value of community service and
the responsibility we all have to
pay it forward. As a result, I made
the decision to join AmeriCorps
where I became a mentor to high
school students who wanted to
collegetrack.org
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